


Facing the Ghosts

by Phoenixflames12



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Barricade Day, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Character Death, F/M, Post-Barricade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-05
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-11-09 08:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11100315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenixflames12/pseuds/Phoenixflames12
Summary: On the first anniversary of the barricades in 1832, Marius walks the streets of Paris and attempts to come to terms with his ghosts.





	Facing the Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Regarding Sunday Mornings](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5703019) by [LilacsandFreedom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilacsandFreedom/pseuds/LilacsandFreedom). 



> A small piece written for Barricade Day 2017. Technically, this should be posted tomorrow given the subject matter, but I thought it would be prudent to put it up today.

Facing the Ghosts 

Paris is a city full of ghosts.

 

He wanders its streets with Cosette’s gloved hand wrapped tightly round his arm; a posy of ox-eye daisies, hyacinths and lilacs tied with a deep scarlet ribbon trembling between her fingers.

                                                         

‘Papa’s favourites,’ she had told him quietly, when he had asked that morning, watching her collect the flowers in her arms from their vase on the dining room windowsill and embrace their stems with ribbon.

 

The flowers will wilt, but he does not wish to tell her that.

 

She had wrapped them in damp newspaper in a temporary measure against the heat swelling and simmering off the buildings of Rue St Denis. His fingers tighten in hers and she squeezes back, a small gesture, but enough.

 

_‘I’m here. You will never have to be alone again.’_

 

They wander slowly up the street and he looks straight ahead, back straight, trying to ignore the ghosts.

 

They come anyway, whispering jovially at him, smirking in turn, laughing and comforting and cajoling all at once.

 

‘Marius mon ami, did you survive? I am so glad!’

 

_Ah, Courfeyrac. Auden de Courfeyrac with that dreaded participle that he hated with a vengeance. Auden de Courfeyrac with his crown of curly black hair and wide mobile mouth lifting into a smile as he stood on the threshold of his apartment, candlelight spilling into the wild, wet night._

‘And this,’ he can see the quick twinkle in his friend’s eyes, that easy smile that he aches for, glinting at his lips. ‘Is this your Ursule?’

 

Marius cannot help but roll his eyes at Courfeyrac as Cosette glances up at him in sudden surprise.

 

‘Are you alright my dear?’ Her eyes dip dark with concern and he nods, reaching to pinch the bridge of his nose to make sure that he is alright, that he has not somehow transcended into the next world by accident.

 

The pain is there, thumb and forefinger pressing hard against the bone and he relaxes. Still here, after all.

 

The ghosts are still here as well.

 

He can feel them crowding at the corners of his eyelids. Feel the breath of those passionate young men whose lives had been cut short too soon, chilled against the back of his neck.

 

Their bodies twist and jostle to meet him, remarks of good natured roughness catching on the wind and his heart aches for them, their names working against his tongue like a decad of his rosary.

 

_Bahorel, the first to die. Thick fingers, so much better at holding a carbine than a quill, clutching at a bullet wound in his gut. Bahorel dying with a shadow of his last laugh quivering across his mouth._

_Bossuet, choking on his own blood as it bubbled in his throat, mischievous eyes blank in death._

_Combeferre, collapsed with a bayonet between his ribs. Combeferre who had been cradling the body of a soldier little older than himself; blank, bespectacled eyes staring eternally at the sky._

_Courfeyrac, ripped to shreds by canon. The fiercely jovial face now little more than a bloody mask._

_Enjolras. The tangled haired Themis, bringer of justice, proud and deadly atop the barricade, the only one unhurt in the final, deadly retreat to the Café Musain. Enjolras, whose body was marred now by eight bullet wounds, glistening a ghastly scarlet against the paleness of his form._

_‘Citizens, the nineteenth century is great, but the twentieth century will be happy.’_

_‘_ Is it Enjolras?’, he thinks, his eyes scanning the streets around them. They had meandered their way up the Rue St. Denis, threading into the grounds of the Notre Dame, beds of tulips, fresh in their first flush of bloom whispering at their feet. The Cathedral looms above them, the lines of scaffolding starkly silhouetted against the sky, sheltering the many gamines and beggar folk cast from their overcrowded garrets to find sanctuary amongst its eves.

_Feuilly. Feuilly who had spent the last sleeping hours carving a final message onto a wall, watching the dawn unlock the morning in increments of pink and grey. Feuilly who had been found with a neatly folded square of parchment in the breast pocket of his waistcoat, the paper soaked and heavy with blood._

_‘Viveunt les peuples’, indeed._

_Grantaire. Grantaire who had slept in the shadows as one by one, each life was lost.  Grantaire who at the eleventh hour had stood with Enjolras, hand outstretched in supplication to his blazing idol.  His grandfather had told Marius that the captain of the company had reported hearing him say in a voice that was thick with regret: ‘Permets-tu?’_

_Joly. Joly, the medic cut down by a bayonet, body pinned to the Musain’s doors. Joly who had spent the duration of the fighting tending to the wounded, his face a mask of complete composure as he ferried bandages and brandy to those in need. Joly, whom he had last seen in the torn and blackened remnants of shirt and trousers, dealing out mercy in a time and place where such things had been long forgotten._

_Prouvaire. Prouvaire who had been captured in the chaos of the first attack. Prouvaire with long, ink stained fingers and a song in his old, Romantic soul that had been shattered by bullets. Marius still remembers the deadly hush of silence that had swept over their side of the barricade, still remembers the shadows of Enjolras and Combeferre rising against the glow of the watch fires, waving a makeshift flag of truce. Still remembers the volley of short, sharp cracks echoing in the quiet._

_‘Vive la France! Vive l’avenir!’_

_The countless nameless men and boys who had joined their cause, swept up in the passionate heat of rebellion on that fateful fifth of June. Who would remember them?_

‘Marius dear, are you sure you’re quite well? You look pale, _mon Cher’,_ Cosette’s face swims through the fog of the ghosts. He knows without having to ask that her heart still aches for the passing of her father, the only love that she has ever known, but still he finds that he cannot share his grief. Cannot bring himself to give her the burden that is his alone to bear.

 

‘Quite well, thank you my dear’, he says, the lie catching in his throat, the grip on her arm tightening ever so slightly.

 

‘Made it alive then, Pontmercy? And married too, I’d wager!’ He is cut short by Bahorel’s booming, jovial tones that even from beyond the grave knock him back slightly.

 

‘With a wife as well,’ The sound of Enjolras’s voice, dry as sandpaper; makes him start. Their golden Themis is moving slowly through the crowd, an imposing presence even in death. He sees Combeferre; it had to be Combeferre, bespectacled and slightly shabby, place a hand on Enjolras’s shoulder; a silent, knowing look flickering between them.

 

As he draws closer Marius sees with a thrill of horror, the nine bullet wounds that adorn his chest, the thin shadow of blood crusted against his mouth.

 

One for each of them.

 

‘I suppose that congratulations should be in order then? Well done Pontmercy’, there is a slight edge in Enjolras’s voice, as the piercing eyes travel to Cosette. Despite himself, he finds his hand tightening slightly on her arm. _Protecting her perhaps?_ He hardly knows.

 

 _Yes,’,_ he thinks to the empty air before him. ‘ _Forgive me.’_

 

Cosette is watching him, her eyes bright pools of sadness as she lightly steers him towards the cathedral.

 

‘They’re gone my love’, he hears her say after a moment, though he knows that she does not believe it.

 

‘Are they?’

 

For he can still feel them, though they are fainter now.

 

Fainter and fading back into oblivion as they turn a corner with the ghosts of their laughter; a heady, hearty sound that makes his heart ache, disappearing as quickly as it had come.

 

By the time, they reach the graveyard’s wrought iron gates, they are gone altogether.

 

* * *

_**Fin** _

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to read and review! Comments, suggestions, constructive criticism etc are like chocolate to my brain! 
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


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